On Balenciaga Resort 2010

“I was so afraid to fly here,” said Balenciaga’s Nicolas Ghesquière, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from his calm demeanor as he showed a 40-look tour de force of a resort collection Monday. He and his Paris team had been vetting the ensembles since 5:00 a.m. for the 9:30 a.m. presentation, a simple show with no musical accompaniment. This collection expressed the most masterly and inventive clothes of the season and a true appreciation for silhouette, fabric, and modernity.

One had to keep pace to both his commentary and the brisk walk of his models in leather and silk black satin sandals cut high on the foot, lashed with topaz or aquamarine. You get a sense that this young man is one of the last in a line of talented designers working in Europe who have the privilege of exploring the archives of a house (in his case, that of arguably the most important couturier of his time, Cristóbal Balenciaga). Karl Lagerfeld has the same luxury and privilege at Chanel. “I love coming and showing this collection like this,” Ghesquière told me. “It is more intimate, and you get to see the clothes in a relaxed way.” Seated on a low, lacquered bench, his mint-green magnesium pills in foil packets beside him, he articulated each look with a succinct monologue on details. The first look out, a pair of beige raw-silk slim trousers as sleek as a fresh No. 9 pencil, was topped with a squared, collarless jacket in the same fabric. When opened, the jacket revealed a beautiful silk lining. Underneath the power of his silhouette, a fragile camisole top was the touch of pure femininity to an urban trouser suit. On a rack just beside Ghesquière was a reissue raw-linen ivory suit, cut exactly like the a suit Marlene Dietrich once ordered in the sixties, for his vintage-inspired Edition line.

There was a simplicity and lightness to all the cuts, especially his trousers in a tobacco Japanese silk worn with a print silk collarless blouse finished with welt edges and its own neat obi belt. Urban safari? “Exactly,” he said. And there was research in every ruched hemline or lightly quilted cardigan in printed silk with matching short, short dresses. Nothing was more dramatic than the interpolations of volume on his cloque, embroidered silk-organza short dresses, which were belted with slices of contrast suede. These beautiful pieces came with the most wonderful little handbags in the same silk organza and framed in matte leather. For the girl who isn’t into matchy-matchy, his tongue-in-chic after-five small evening bag—a quilted, studded, gold-trimmed purse that resembles a deflated pillow—is going to be a hot item. (He also showed straw handbaskets, so right for St.-Tropez or Big Sur or even Jackson Hole; neat coffee-colored straw clutches framed in ostrich leather; and canvas totes with black leather handles and trim.) As an alternative to the bombast silhouettes, abbreviated column dresses came in the same embroidered silk organza but with the floral motif in different colors. He also went strong on new urban madras cotton. Pierrot ruffled collars on blouses worn with khaki Bermuda shorts and abbreviated coats with double draped shoulders added an unexpected element of dégradé elegance.

His open-toed slingbacks featured strips of black matte leather wrapped around the foot and heels in colors like chrome and taxicab yellow. And wonderful summer boots look like huge woven cables of leather. “It makes for big feet, but your legs look really thin and small,” Ghesquière said.

For the vintage line demonstrating the timeless quality of Balenciaga, he offered a small lineup of beauties. A sleek sand-colored short coat of purist lines was copied from a 1963 design. The new le smoking came in the form of a pair of black, cuffed above-the-ankle trousers worn with a black lace camisole, and a see-through baby doll bubble of point d’esprit and crinoline, open or belted, was the Ghesquière version of the little black dress. The penultimate was one of the most beautiful long cloque dresses, with raised Empire waist and full panel in the back, from 1963. Every evening look came with reissue necklaces, including one with a huge faux baroque pearl, or double rhinestone necklaces inspired by archival finds.

In that rara avis world of high fashion in Paris, Ghesquière continues to astonish with collections that are of his time. Chanel told writer Paul Morand (The Allure of Chanel [Pushkin Press]), “Fashion should express the place, the moment.”